Published by Harlequin Teen on September 25th, 2018
Genres: Historical, horror, sci-fi
Format: Hardcover
Source: Purchased
Goodreads
🌟🌟🌟.5
At seventeen, June Hardie is everything a young woman in 1951 shouldn’t be—independent, rebellious, a dreamer. June longs to travel, to attend college and to write the dark science fiction stories that consume her waking hours. But her parents only care about making June a better young woman. Her mother grooms her to be a perfect little homemaker while her father pushes her to marry his business partner’s domineering son. When June resists, her whole world is shattered—suburbia isn’t the only prison for different women…Amy Lukavics' books are scary as shit. She has really set the bar for YA horror these days. There just simply isn't anyone like her in the field right now, able to capture character, voice, and chills all at the same time. While I didn't find Nightingale to be perfect by any means, I still highly recommend it for its originality, its representation (both for mental health and for wlw), and for its scare factor. I guarantee you've never read a book quite like this.
June’s parents commit her to Burrow Place Asylum, aka the Institution. With its sickening conditions, terrifying staff and brutal “medical treatments,” the Institution preys on June’s darkest secrets and deepest fears. And she’s not alone. The Institution terrorizes June’s fragile roommate, Eleanor, and the other women locked away within its crumbling walls. Those who dare speak up disappear…or worse. Trapped between a gruesome reality and increasingly sinister hallucinations, June isn’t sure where her nightmares end and real life begins. But she does know one thing: in order to survive, she must destroy the Institution before it finally claims them all.
I had to admit I was a bit apprehensive about starting this. It's a horror novel set at an asylum. Usually such a setting is prime breeding ground for ableism. The patients themselves are the scary ones. I am so happy and relieved to report that this is not the case in Nightingale. The patients are treated horribly in this "hospital" but they are also the main characters. June finds a group of friends in Burrow Place and they are sympathetic, realistic people who are being victimized--and who fight back. The real villains are the doctors and the nurses. It was so refreshing. So if you're worried about the typical tropes that come with asylum-based horror, you don't have to worry about that here.
I really liked June. I thought she carried the story perfectly. She was always just so interesting and deeply flawed, and, at times, completely unreliable. She was a writer, of sci-fi! Of course, in the 1950s that wasn't exactly becoming of a teenage girl. Her parents had certain expectations of her, and writing about aliens and spaceships just didn't fit into those limits at all. I think it'd be great to say that June just bucked those expectations and forged out on her own; instead, though, she was much more realistic than that. Anyone who has been in a situation even similar to hers knows how hard it is to disappoint your family. You know how hard it is sometimes to be brave and individual. June struggled with her family's approval and reconciling that with her own dreams. As a reader, it's easy to get caught up in June's struggle here and immediately shift the blame to her parents when it comes to June's hospitalization. But June is just so unreliable, leaving so many key details out, that you just can't tell if she's being institutionalized for her "hysteria" or if something's really wrong here.
This book is not for those with a weak stomach, I have to say. There is a lot of grossness, a lot of gore. There are brains and bugs and lots of blood. Needles, gruesome deaths, lobotomies. There were also some truly terrifying, chilling moments, moments that have you feeling trapped and claustrophobic and hopeless. It was not an easy read.
One thing I really wish was that I had a closer connection to the side characters. There were quite a few of them. The girls in the Institution with June kind of blended together for me. There were only two that really stuck out to me, Simpson, the artist, and Eleanor, June's roommate and love interest. We got a pretty bleak first impression of Eleanor and I think for me it was hard to get past it. I wanted to ship the ship but there was so much else going on that I didn't think there was enough time to dedicate to the romance. It came on really quickly for me. And I hate that because I always want to root for the f/f ships.
Without giving too much away, Nightingale reminds me of a classic sci-fi/horror novel. It has a feeling of nostalgia that we don't see much these days, and I thought it was such a cutting, precise commentary and condemnation of American culture, especially with regards to women and women's rights. So timely, given our current political climate. If you're looking for a good scare, a compelling plot, and something that gets your brain going, this one is definitely for you.
